


That fire underneath my skin (it burns for you)

by IronShieldGal



Series: To Play With Fire [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: But it could be gayer, Fantasy, Fire Magic, Flying, Gen, Ice Magic, It's a bit gay, Like seriously overpowered, Magic, Mentions of Slavery, Non-human characters, Original work - Freeform, Souls are to magic what Hearts are to blood, electricity magic, gladiator environment, magic artifacts, overpowered main character, she's badass though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronShieldGal/pseuds/IronShieldGal
Summary: “Gentlemen,” she says, baring her fangs. Some recoil, others just look shocked. Some look excited.“I do believe you've read the situation wrong,” she continues, and she knows everyone can hear her; her opponents and the audience, too. She gathers her magic, makes it grow into a familiar shape but she doesn’t let it materialize yet. “I’m not trapped in here with you,” she lets the words sink in for a few seconds, and then she grins widely, in a feral way that she knows scares her friends sometimes, especially Shane, who is all too familiar by the longing for blood, but he’s more appalled by it than she is.“You are trapped in here, with me,” and she lets the magic go.





	That fire underneath my skin (it burns for you)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an original work. 
> 
> This belongs to a way bigger original work, which I have fully planned out and consists of about six parts of around 60 chapters each. I have not yet written all of it (not by a long shot) but I wanted to write something badass with my crew. This would take place after an alternate ending to the original content.
> 
> All you need to know right now:  
> Souls are like hearts, they're an organ pumping a substance through your body. Your soul doesn't pump your blood, it pumps your magic. This means not everybody has a soul, because not everybody has magic. And like blood transfusions, magic power can be transfused into the magic "bloodstream". This is a bit easier than a blood transfusion since it doesn't require a needle, but just lots of practice and an artefact stuffed with magic energy. (think eragon and like emeralds and stuff, if you've read that)
> 
> If you have any questions about this universe or the characters, feel free to ask :)

Electricity still hums across her spine by the time she wakes up. There are fingers in her hair and she fights not to tense up when consciousness creeps back into her mind. First, asses your surroundings, she tells herself.

 She’s lying down, on her stomach, with the right side of her face pressing down on cold, smooth stone. Concrete. The cold on her skin and the hard floor she feels to her bones tells her that they have taken her coat.

 Her beautiful grey coat with dragon bone plates sewed in to protect her from almost all damage. She’ll find it again, she swears to herself. She’ll find it again. They have also taken her shoes, sturdy leather boots that have formed to her feet by the years she’s been walking on them. She can’t feel any weapons on her either –her knife was taken together with the boot it was hidden in, and she seems to be missing her belt altogether; another knife, two throwing daggers and her precious axe with it.

 That belt was pretty valuable; there were Power Gems sewn into the leather. The three she first got from Shane, after she first learnt she was able to draw power from them –but way before she ever succeeded in that. Determination, Intelligence and Ferocity have since been joined by other Gems she has found; Vigilance, Efficiency and Trickery. Power, Patience and Precision have been embedded into her axe since it was formed, eons before she found it.

 The fire gems that have hung around her neck since she was little are also gone and she tries not to long for the familiar warmth and weight too much, since she can’t make them come back by wishing for it.  

 All in all, that are a lot of Power Gems and one pair of Elemental Gems gone. Only a handful of races on a meagre amount of worlds know they exist, and even fewer would recognize a gem of power when presented with one. Still, she’s anxious without them and she will tear this civilization down to reclaim them –in the wrong hands, even if those hands are unaware of the power they hold, they can do a lot of bad.

 They have left her in her pants and shirt, and she’s cold.

She has never felt cold in her life. Her fire has always kept her warm. Almost desperately, while telling herself not to panic like a mantra in her head, she reaches for the fire within her. She reaches for her magic stream, for her soul usually beating as powerful as her heart, but all she feels inside her is one organ pumping around blood in her chest.

 She can’t feel her soul pumping around her magic. She can’t feel her fire in her fingertips. She feels utterly powerless and a bit panicked.

 The fingers in her hair pull at a knot in it and she almost jerks in pain. Fingers of what she presumes to be the other hand find her neck and tap a soft rhythm on her skin. 

 Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Double-tap.

It’s Jasper. She should’ve known –should’ve recognized his presense, but her magic is gone and it won’t register threats and friends anymore.

 A new sequence is tapped out.

 Double-tap. Pause. Tap.

Safe. Well, she’s not in immediate danger, but she’s not fully safe either, otherwise there would’ve been two double-taps.

 But if Jasper deems it safe enough for her to open her eyes, she does.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Jasper’s brown eyes look at her, but there is concern and fear in them that can’t be heard in his voice.

 When she sits up electricity shoots down her spine and she represses a groan. She looks around –they’re alone in here, and they took Jasper’s coat, boots, guns, knives and his bow and arrows. He looks cold, and she wants to warm him up but try as she might, her fire doesn’t rise.

 She remembers how she got here. “It was a trap,” she says, and Jasper taps a finger against her jaw. “Astute,” he says, grinning widely. She wants to make a witty comment back, on how he never uses fancy words like that unless Elias is around, but this is not the time. “It was a fucking trap and I fell for it.”

 “Excuse you, it was a team effort. We all fell for it,” Jasper interrupts. “Do you know how they took my magic?” she asks. Jasper shrugs, but his eyebrows furrow. “I don’t know. They injected you with something while you were out –a two-inch needle, right into your neck. I couldn’t do anything to stop it,” he looks ashamed but he’s only human –he’s the best sharpshooter and he’s silent as snowfall when he’s not talking, she loves having him on her team, but he’s still only human.

 “It’s okay,” she says. “If it’s an injection, it’ll leave my body within hours, or maybe days. In the end, my magic will come back,” she’s reassuring herself just as much as she’s reassuring him.

 “Now what do we do,” Jasper says. His hand is still combing through her hair and that is when she fully registers they took it out of it’s usual braid. A big mass of fiery red hair swoops down around her head and falls to her hips. She shakes it out of her face, annoyed.

 “Right. Did they knock you out?” she asks. Jasper nods, “but only for a while. They knocked me out first thing after they got you down but I came to before we even got here. They had me tied up, though, so I couldn’t move.”

 “How long has it been?” she asks, and it could be anything. It could be hours, maybe even days.

 “I think it’s almost been a day,” Jasper replies. “They came to bring food a while ago –there’s still some water left for you, but I ate all the bread. Sorry,” he shrugs sheepishly and she makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. “It probably wasn’t tasty anyway,” she says. She gets up on her feet with quite some difficulty.

 “It wasn’t normal electricity they zapped me with,” she says as she moves over to where a water pitcher stands. “I can still feel it creeping around my bones and hurting me as I move.” Jasper hums, in thought, which is an unusual state for him to be in.

 The room they’re in is tiny –about twelve by ten feet. Three walls are concrete like the floor and ceiling, and one wall consists of metal bars as thick as Ryaths lower arm. There isn’t much space between them –she could probably fit her arm through, but not much more. There is a bucket with a thin layer of water in a corner, and some blankets in the corner.

 “Right, so if it’s been a day,” she sits down next to Jasper again, folding her legs underneath her and placing the water pitcher between them as she looks him in the eye. “the others probably know we’re gone. They figured out that there was a scuffle –so that we’ve been taken. With Shane and Ellie’s abilities combined they can track us here, and with Elias there they won’t make their plan to rescue us too stupid,” she says. “If we escape now we might mess up their plan if it’s already set in motion and that might end badly for all of us. So I say we don’t act until we either hear from them or we have to,” Jasper is nodding with her, agreeing with her thoughts.

 “Based on what we were investigating, how easily they took us and the fact that we’re in a holding cell that could probably hold a dragon for a good long while if it hadn’t been too tiny, I think we’re taken by the organization we were looking at,” she says.

 “Shit.” Jasper says. A fitting reaction. “Yeah, shit,” she says. “Especially since that means you’re here to be insurance of my good behavior.”

 The organization they were investigating were rumored to kidnap magical people –preferably with offensive abilities. Then, they would make them battle in an arena, sometimes they would be each other’s opponents, but mostly against useless, human captives, wild animals or armed, trained soldiers. Then, after a magical person had survived and thoroughly shown off what they were capable off, they were either sold to the highest bidder, or kept to fight in gladiator style fights for entertainment.

 Since Jasper didn’t have any magic whatsoever, they probably took him so they could make Ryath do what they wanted easily by threatening her friend.

 Which is good reasoning on their part seeing as they were able to zap her because she was too busy protecting Jasper.

 “This is also partially good news because that means my powers won’t be gone for a long time,” she says. “And I’ll have them in the arena, probably before and after, too.” 

 “Right. So we wait for the others to rescue us?” Jasper does not sound pleased.

It’s something a lot of her friends share. Jasper, Ellie and Zoey are all go-getters. They like to get things done, and get them done now. They aren’t fond of planning things out and while they’ll gladly follow a plan that includes them in action, they will object to something that requires them to wait and have patience.

 “What if we escape now, and the others are in the building? We raise the alarm, because if we get out of here it’s going to be guns blazing, no quiet affair. The others might be found out and then we have to rescue them. And it’s easier to rescue two with four than it is to rescue four with two, especially if we have to bust them out after we’ve escaped. Security will be super tight, especially around them,” Ryath reasons with him. Then, she winks, “plus, don’t you want Elias to rescue you so you can swoon all over him and…” she gets cut off by Jasper punching her in the shoulder and then she just laughs. She knows she has convinced him.

 “Alright, alright,” Jasper says, shaking brown locks out of his eyes, “I’ll be the perfect damsel in distress and I’ll wait patiently for my prince charming to save me. If there isn’t a true love’s kiss at the end I’m going to sue you.”

 Ryath almost chokes on the water as she empties the water pitcher. “You’ll be lucky if your prince charming gets you out of here unscathed, if you want a kiss you’re going to have to take it,” she says. Jasper repeats her last words in a mocking tone, and then it’s quiet.

 His hands are fiddling with his shirt, and she knows he can get fidgety when he’s nervous and has nothing to do with his hands. He’s always got something in his hands, the only moments when he doesn’t fiddle with anything are moments of true inner peace –or moments when he’s holding Elias’s hand. They might think she doesn’t notice, but they’re _hers_ , her friends and her team. She keeps tabs on them.

 Her fingers find her scalp and pick a few hairs from her head. She twists and turns them until it’s a somewhat shorter thread. She holds it up to Jasper. “If I’m going to need to kick ass in an arena, I’m going to need my hair to be braided,” she says, and his eyes light up. He loves braiding her hair –it just doesn’t happen often because she almost never takes the braid out.

 She turns her back to him and soon enough she feels clever fingers combing through her locks. She closes her eyes as he handles her big mop of hair, forces it into it’s place and soon she’s dozing off slightly.

 “Gimme the thread,” Jasper’s voice is quiet in her ear and she sluggishly blinks her eyes open. She hands him the thread over her shoulder and feels how he ties her hair together. He pets the thick braid twice, and then his arms fall around her waist as she leans back against his chest. “Thank you,” she says, and he echoes it.

 ***

 

 

When she wakes up again, it’s from footsteps on the concrete, coming towards her. She blinks open her eyes and elbows Jasper in the stomach behind her. He startles awake and they’re both on their feet, backs to the concrete and faces to the bars within seconds. He’s covering her right –right where he belongs as her unofficial second in their group.

Her left side is somewhat angled towards the wall to compensate for Shane’s absence and her left hand is touching it lightly. Her right is holding Jasper’s left.

 A man steps into vision. He’s tall –not as tall as Shane, not even close, but for a human man, he’s tall. Just over six feet, she thinks.

 He’d tower over her if he came close, but she won’t let him. She can feel her soul slowly beating, slowly starting up and while she can’t access her magic yet –there is not enough- she knows it’s there, and within half an hour or so she’ll be able to use it. She won’t be at full power for another few days, probably a week, but she’ll make do.

 He’s broad, muscles like steel wires underneath his skin as he effortlessly opens the metal bar wall –which apparently is a sliding door.

 There are black ink marks covering his arms and neck, and he’s bald. It’s by choice, because she can see the beginnings of hair growing on his scalp. It’s red, like hers. His eyes are a greyish green, and he’s grinning.

 “This one will do just nicely for the next round,” he says, gesturing to her. There are two people next to him, a man and a woman, both dressed in fully white, The woman has brown skin and black hair she’s bound together. Her face is blank.

 The man is tall, lanky and blonde with blue eyes trained on Jasper. His cheekbones stand out from his face and wiry muscles trail over his arms. Ryath squeezes Jasper’s hand, hoping he’s keeping his face just as blank as Elias is doing.

 “Take the boy,” the man gestures towards Jasper, and the woman and Elias start moving towards Jasper. Ryath moves her body in front of Jaspers and snarls at both of them, her upper lip curling to show off her fangs.

 Sometimes she’s very happy that she looks very human on the outside, just so she can shock people with her fangs. It gives her an advantage in combat when people are startled by them. They’re not very big, not even much bigger than her normal teeth, but both upper and lower fangs are extremely sharp and she can tear someone’s throat out with them.

 She knows from experience. That woman had it coming, though.

The woman recoils slightly, but Elias doesn’t even flinch. He reaches out to Jasper, metal cuffs in his hands, face blank.

 “If you want him, you’ll have to go through me,” Ryath growls, and the woman actually looks a bit scared. Maybe she’s new, Ryath reasons, maybe that’s why Elias got in so easily. They’re training new recruits.

 “C’mon, don’t be difficult, doll,” the man grins at her, standing into the doorway. Her escape. “We’ll return him to you when you’re done with what we want you to do. That’s how it goes here. You work, and you listen to me, and both you and your boyfriend will come no harm. I just sometimes will borrow him so I can ensure you do what you’re told,” he rolls his shoulders. “I’m sure you understand. Now, if you don’t give him to us right now, I’ll let the recruits cut off a finger from his left hand when we do get him.”

 Jasper squeezes her hand, and she angles her head towards him, not losing the other three out of sight. “It’ll be all right, Ry,” he says. “Just do what they tell you and then I’ll be back, yeah,” his voice is quivering. She never knew he was this good an actor.

 The man grins. “Yeah, doll, listen to your boy, he seems like a smart one.”

She can see a tiny smile breaking out on Elias’s lips, but he has his poker face back within a second. She agrees with him: Jasper is many, many good things, but exceptionally intelligent is not one of them. He can think quite logically when it comes to combat strategies and he’s therefore the one who helps with details of a plan after Elias and Ryath have come up with it, but making the right decisions in the spur of the moment is not what Jasper is known for.

 “How can you guarantee that you’ll bring him back to me unharmed?” she asks. She knows the answer, but if he doesn’t he won’t be held to his word. 

 “Well, if I do as I promise –give him back to you unharmed as long as you follow instructions- then you’ll be far more likely to be cooperative next time than if I do actually hurt him,” he says, and she’s satisfied.

 She hides her fangs behind her lips and drops the defensive stance. She doesn’t drop Jaspers hand yet, though. “I have a request,” she says, and Jasper squeezes her hand in warning. She squeezes back in reassurance.

  The man laughs. “You can always make requests, but it may come at a price, or not at all,” he says. Ryath nods. “You took my coat, my boots and my weapons from me. I’d like them back for the fight in the arena,” she says. “You injected me with something and I can’t use my powers. I can’t give a good show if I don’t have my armor and my weapons,” she reasons, and as soon as she has her belt and her necklace she can tap into that power and fill her magic stream with it –make her soul pump it around, and she’ll be able to wield her fire like anyway, but he doesn’t need to know that.

 “That does sound like a good request. You get them in the arena, and as soon as you’re out you will surrender them again or your boyfriend will lose a body part for everything you don’t immediately return,” he argues. “You’ll get used to the arena weapons in time if you become a gladiator, but if you give a better performance with your own weapons we’ll make more money off of you,” he shrugs. “I suppose you want your shiny necklace back too, then,” and she’s glad he brought it up because she doesn’t want to put Jasper in any real danger just yet.

 “I like to strangle my downed enemies with it,” she shrugs. “It’s a family heirloom.”

The man laughs again and waves towards the woman and Elias to grab Jasper. This time, Ryath lets them. Elias grabs Jasper by the shoulder and Ryath can see him squeezing it. “I like you, doll,” the man says, “I hope they decide to keep you as a gladiator. You’ll be fun to watch,” and oh, does she plan on putting on a show for them.

 Ryath nods and watches as the woman and Elias steer Jasper down the hall, away from her. “Do I fight now?” she asks, and the man grins. “Yes, you do. I do hope you plan to be a good girl and follow without making a ruckus, yeah?” She nods an affirmative, yet still she has to let him close to her to clasp her wrists together in cold metal.

 They walk for a while, she’s trailing in his shadow and trying to make her soul pump her magic around faster.

 He opens a door and gestures her through. She’s in a tiny room with a gate to her left. It’s iron and she can see through it into the arena.

 She can’t see much, but she can see it isn’t small. That’s in her favor. The more moving room she has, the more evasive she can be. She tries to look up, to see if there is a ceiling and how high it is, but she can’t see. The tunnel into the arena is too long for her to see much.

 The man tells her to wait here and disappears. After a while he comes back with her stuff and he watches as she pulls on her coat and her boots, locating the hidden knives in both of them. Then she slips on her belt and twirls her axe around for a bit, to make sure nobody tampered with it.

 All the Gems are still in place and as she slips the fire Elemental gems around her neck she feels whole.

 “What’s that sewn into your coat?” the man asks. “We’ve never seen anything like it before.” She rolls her shoulders to warm up her muscles. “Dragon bone plates,” she says. The man’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but he doesn’t say much. “Do you wish to fight a dragon?” he asks, and she knows he likes her –likes her fighting spirit, and the fact she seems bloodthirsty and willing to cooperate.

 “No,” she says. She could beat a dragon, but she’d rather do something with more opponents so she can stretch out the fight. “I want a lot of opponents,” she says. “Preferably with like swords and bows and such,” she says, because that’s easiest to defend against while still taking her time to kill them.

“Hmmh,” the man hums, then he bangs on another door. “Williams, I want you to send in the traitors next with the new witch,” he turns back to her. “A group of twenty men that worked here tried to get our best gladiator out of here so they could sell him and then make off with the money. We caught them, and now they will die.” Ryath nods.

 Good. No innocent souls, then. While she will kill innocents if it is to protect herself and her own, it is definitely preferable that they are not.

 Plus she won’t have to fight this subject with the others again. If it comes down to it, only Elias will agree with her that killing innocents is sometimes necessary to protect themselves and each other. Shane argues that it’s inhumane –another way should be found and, if necessary, they would have to get themselves hurt so they wouldn’t have to kill innocents. Jasper, Ellie and Zoey take it even further, saying they need to go out of their way to save the innocent people while that is very against their own survival.

 Luckily they were already on their way to dismantle this organization so they wouldn’t have to argue on the yes or no of saving all the innocent people here made to fight. Of course, Ryath has to get Jasper and herself out of here first, and when they’re outside they can plan.

 She stretches her body, working away the last of the electricity on her bones and tapping into the Elemental Gems around her neck, filling her soul and magic circulation with fire magic. She attunes her soul with the gems in her axe. Power, patience and precision always are welcome in battle and she tries as much as she can to take the Gems’ energy into her being so the traits are prominent in her mind.

 After a minute or two, a voice is to be heard from the arena.

“And now, a group of traitors who tried to steal from us will serve as example,” a loud voice booms through Ryaths head and she’s pretty sure the guy ingested a potion or had a witch put a spell on his voice to make it louder. “They will be given armor and weapons to their desire so they can protect themselves. They will be fighting for their lives against a newcomer; a woman of great magic, deadly spirit and who owns a pretty sharp axe. Really, guys, I cut my finger on it when I tried to feel how sharp it was. I have no doubt she can cut a man’s head in half with one swing, if she can lift it. That thing is heavy,” the crowd laughs, and some chant something that Ryath identifies after a few seconds as the word “witch”.

 “By the way, I’m not a witch,” she says to the bulking man still standing behind her. She’s facing the iron gate now, and it’s slowly rising. Her heart is beating quick but steadily, and excitement for battle is taking over her body. A feral grin finds its way to her face and she knows her fangs are showing.

 “What are you, then,” he asks, seemingly more to please her than out of real curiosity. “I’m an elf,” she says.

 Well, half-elf, technically, but she is most like her mother. Since elves –her race of elves, anyway- are the result of the creators of the Power Gems experimenting on humans with said gems, humans and elves are not much different, and all the differences are there in her.

The fangs. The magic. The heightened strength, endurance and senses. The slightly feral side of her that loves shedding blood, the side of her that thrives on a battlefield, the side of her that glows like a child with a cookie whenever she slits a throat.

 She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet and when the gate is open enough she ducks underneath it and sprints into the arena. Light hits her face and she throws up her arms in the air, angling her face towards the sun. Her mouth opens and a roar rips out of her throat; challenging anyone who dares stand before her.

 The crowd cheers and the fleeting thought that she’d be worth a shit ton of money if she wasn’t going to escape shoots through her head.

 After two seconds she angles her head back down and searches for her opponents. They’re huddled in their own corner, in armor that doesn’t fit very well, but they hold their weapons with experienced hands.

 They don’t look scared. They look like they’ve already won.

There is no ceiling. She quickly touches Vigilance on her belt, sending out an invisible signal to the only one perceptive enough to sense it. While Elias and Zoey are also magic, Shane has been magic all his life and he has trained Ryath in her magic. He will recognize the signal for what it is: that she knows they’re there, and that she’ll stall this fight and wait for their signal.

 She backs up a bit, her hand finding the stone wall easily and gliding across it as she quickly approaches the group of twenty men on the other side of the arena.

 Then another gate rambles, on the side of her opponents. It opens and from it, a bear of a man appears. His bare torso is covered in scars and his hands covered in a green magic.

 A witch, she realizes. And a powerful one, too.

“And, as part of their punishment,” a voice adds, “the gladiator they tried to take from us will fight by their sides, to the death. May everybody learn that a witch on your side does not mean you are invincible.

 They must have a lot of faith in her. Then again, they probably have a way of measuring magic, and when they measured hers they also felt the Power Gems and the Elemental Gems magic on her body.

 Her own magic has been flooding back the past few minutes, and not only because she’s tapping into the gems. She’s pretty sure she would’ve been at full capacity at the start of this fight regardless of the gems.

 The men grin at each other and they yell at her. She doesn’t pay attention to their words. When she’s almost in the middle of the arena she lets go of the wall and the last few meters are spent walking towards the exact middle. The men are almost giddy, first they move with caution but when she does nothing but watch them they act quickly and surround her.

 The witch is in front of her, and his eyes are dead. She can sense his soul –it still pumps around it’s magic, but it feels sick.

 This man’s spirit is broken, and killing him will be merciful.

When there are all standing around her, she slowly swivels around, taking them all in. She stops with her back towards the witch, sending her magic through her feet into the ground so she knows if he moves.  
“Gentlemen,” she says, baring her fangs. Some recoil, others just look shocked. Some look excited.

 “I do believe you read the situation wrong,” she continues, and she knows everyone can hear her; her opponents and the audience, too. She gathers her magic, makes it grow into a familiar shape but she doesn’t let it materialize yet. “I’m not trapped in here with _you_ ,” she lets the words sink in for a few seconds, and then she grins widely, in a feral way that she knows scares her friends sometimes, especially Shane, who is all too familiar by the longing for blood, but he’s more appalled from it than she is.

 “ _You_ are trapped in here, with _me_ ,” and she lets the magic go. Her fire materializes, solidifies and burning red wings open from her shoulder blades. The feathers are a combination of red, orange, blue and white, long and fiery as a phoenix’s. One wing is as long as she is tall, and as she spreads them she can almost touch her opponents with them. She flexes the muscles in her wings, and she remembers how long it took before she learnt how to create them, and she is astounded by how easily she can pull it off now, but now is not the time for reflection, now is the time for _death_.

 She spreads her wings, flaps them a few times and the wind blows a few of the men a step back. Then, she kicks off and she’s in the air.

 She laughs, summersaults backwards and lands her feet into the sides of the witch before anyone can react properly, digging her hands into his shoulders and her fangs into his throat. With her magic, she has put a fire in his heart that has killed him instantly and painlessly, but for show she rips out his throat and blood trickles down her chin as she looks up at the sun again and a sound akin to a victorious howl leaves her throat.

 The men scatter as mice before a dragon and the predator in her laughs with giddiness at the feast before her, but her mouth stays closed, her body focused on the task beforehand.

 She lands next to a cluster of the men, five of them to be exact, and the takes out her axe.

 She swings slowly enough so the man she’s attacking can bring up his sword to block the blow, but fast enough that impact knocks him back a few second. Fire is curling up around her arms, dancing around her legs and nestling in her hair. She’s in constant motion, blocking attacks and making swings with her axe, in combat with all five men, moving slowly enough so she won’t kill them instantly.

 “I do believe she’s playing with them, am I mistaken or, no, no she’s definitely playing with them!” the announcer sounds as giddy as she feels, excited and full of energy as she faces murderers and torturous and slavers and she’s _humiliating_ them.

 Some men with bows have taken aim at her and arrows clatter to the ground, not even slowing her down as her coat with dragon bones protects her from harm.

 One of the men falls to her axe as it hits his skull, the next gets taken out of battle when steel glides through his knee like it was butter and he falls to the ground, clutching the stump of his leg. He’s screaming and the sound hurts her head so with a few quick flames she ends his suffering. The commentator is yelling, but she’s not focusing on words, she’s focusing on not killing them too quickly because she needs to get a signal.

 Still, it gets tiring for her mind to play with them after a while, so before she knows it there are only five men left standing. They’re a good thirty feet away from her, standing close together but not close enough that they would hinder each other, clutching their weapons like their lives depend on them.

 Their lives were forfeit by the time Ryath stepped into the arena.

She ignores the men and kicks off of the ground again, her wings spreading to lift her up to the height of the commentator. He’s a weird man, with weirdly colored hair, and his mouth is gaping open as she rises in front of him, hovering in the air as her wings slowly but steadily beat to keep her aloft.

 “Is that the best you can do?” she all but screams at him, hoping they’ll send in more so she can stall for more time.

 The commentator seems to be lost for words, and a bit scared for his own neck but she’ll leave his head on his body.

 For now.

She is just about to yell again or find somebody else to yell at when a tiny bit of frost appears into the commentator’s hair. She grins a wicked grin and is almost positive that the commentator just pissed himself as she throws herself into a back somersault and dives back to the ground.

 The five men left standing are dead, three from fire and two by axe, within a few seconds and she lands in the middle of the arena. She lifts her arms, beats her wings enough to create a gust of wind but not enough to lift from the floor, and roars at the crowd.

 They love her, yelling and whistling and calling for more.

The gate she came from opens and she can see the big guy standing there, beckoning her. He has a concerned look in his eyes, but he also has Jasper in one hand and a knife in the other, so she folds her wings in –but she doesn’t make them disappear- and slowly walks towards him.

 If right about now they would make clear what their plan was, she could participate in it. Her blood is humming and she feels like she could tear a head from shoulders with her bare hands.

 She probably could but it would be less efficient than with her axe, so she isn’t going to try.

“Wings gone,” the man commands before she enters the tunnel. Her wings flap a bit, but then she lets the magic go and they fold into her back, gone until she calls for them.

 “You’re going to give me all your armor and weapons, and then you’re going to take an injection to dampen your powers,” he tells her, and she hasn’t had any other signals yet so she drops her axe to the ground. Then she takes the knife out of her boot and drops it, too. Her jacket joins the pile and she wonders if she could keep her gems, but he looks anxious and he stinks of fear so it’s best not to risk it. She drops her belt, too, ignoring every fiber of her being that tells her to be careful with them.

 If she treats the belt differently from her weapons he will notice, and he will act on it.

“Do you want the boots, too? The best thing in them is the knife, and I already gave you that,” she says. He gestures towards the pile, so she shrugs and takes off her boots, too. “Do you have anyone to take the necklace, because I’m not putting it on the ground,” she says, and her mind and magic are reaching for Shane and Zoey, or Elias or even Ellie, who won’t notice her presence, because she can’t be injected by the stuff, she can’t be.

 He outstretches a hand, the one holding the knife, and she puts the necklace around his fingers. Jasper looks relaxed, and that puts her at ease. When she catches his eyes, he winks at her, eyebrows wiggling and lips puckering up.

 The man relaxes slightly in front of her, and then crumbles to the ground.

Behind him stands Elias, sparks of electricity dancing on his fingertips, and he’s grinning at her. “Guess prince charming had two damsels to save,” he says, and Ryath grins at him as she picks up the necklace from the useless pile of man on the floor. She slips it on, and then works on reclaiming her weapons and armor. Once she’s all geared up she grabs Jaspers hand. “You okay?” she asks, and he nods. “Yeah, they didn’t do shit to me, like they promised. I’m good.” He doesn’t even ask if she’s good –he knows she didn’t get hurt, but he also knows she’s in a space of mind where she isn’t very rational, a space of mind where she craves violence and where her blood hums with adrenaline.

 “So, what’s the plan?” she asks. Elias gestures towards the door she came in from and as if summoned, it opens to reveal Shane, Zoey and Ellie rushing in.

 Ellie rushes in to hug Ryath and the redhead lets go of Jaspers hand to hug her friend back. “Hey, I’m okay,” she says. “You got me scared for a second there, fledgling,” Ellie says. Ryath laughs and squeezes the brunette. “Don’t be scared for me,” she says.

 “Yeah, don’t be scared for her,” Jasper agrees, “be scared for me! I was the one who got threatened with limb loss! Where are my hugs?” Ellie laughs and steps back, her eyes green as fresh grass finding Ryaths own, dark as pine needle, and they share a smile. “If you want hugs, go bother your boyfriend,” she says, nodding at Elias. Jasper colors a bit and Elias coughs in his throat.

 “Guys while I’m loving this, maybe save the flirting for later,” Zoey interrupts as she dumps something in Jaspers arms. It’s his coat, and his boots, and all his weapons. “Zoey I could kiss you,” he says, quickly pulling on his boots.

 “Please don’t,” Shane says, quickly coming to stand next to Zoey. His eyes find Ryaths. “There was no saving that man,” he says, and she knows he means the witch. “No,” she agrees, “there wasn’t.” 

 It’s his way of saying he doesn’t like she had to kill him, but he sees that it was the most merciful towards the witch himself. He also knows that that isn’t the reason she chose to do it: she killed him and she killed him quickly because it would make her control of the battlefield absolute. They won’t argue over it, though. They have argued the same point many times until Ryath pointed out he didn’t mind her killing _him_ for her own benefit, to which he weakly protested she knew he wouldn’t stay dead because of what he was, but they both know she could’ve burnt his body with easy, ensuring his death was permanent.

 When Jasper has his boots and coat on, Zoey moves towards the door and opens it. “It’s good,” she says, motioning them through. Shane takes the lead with Zoey right behind him, followed by Jasper, then Ryath, then Ellie and Elias. They walk quickly, taking turns, sometimes taking down guards in their way. Shane just renders them unconscious and glares at her when Ryath tells him that they’re going back to kill most of these people anyway, so she keeps her mouth shut after that.

 When they’re close to the exit, they’re noticed and guards are called. Ryath just taps into the gems around her neck and erects a shield of fire around her friends.

 She could, of course, let them protect themselves while they fight their way out of the building where one of them would get hurt, which would be an opportunity for sappy, feelings-y moments, but this is easier. Of course she can’t keep the shield up forever, and as soon as they figure out that weapons can go through the fire they’re fucked, but it seems that after her demonstration in the arena they’re pretty afraid of her so they practically let them walk away.

On their way out, Ryath blows up their main gate, Zoey freezes the road behind them so people would slip on it and Elias zaps the building so electricity fails in it’s entirety within.

 ***

 

 

They’re back at camp after a few hours of walking. They used most of that time to catch each other up to what had happened to them during their separation, and then planning on how to best take down the organization so it wouldn’t rise again. Ryath has Jasper on her right and Ellie on her left, Shane and Zoey together in front of her and Elias next to Jasper.

 Her entire crew is here, and they’re all safe and unharmed, her blood is calm and all is right in the world.

 Well, not _all_ is right, but they’ll make the world a better place step by step, together; the only way it is to be done.

  

 


End file.
